


Ocean Waves

by Symxalia



Category: Persona 5
Genre: "true end", Gen, Grief/Mourning, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-08-02 18:02:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16310039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Symxalia/pseuds/Symxalia
Summary: It's been years since the events of the engine room, but Akira still can't forget.





	Ocean Waves

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this sitting in my docs for a while, but I finally decided I'm just gonna post it.

Akira’s alone now.

 

No Morgana, Ryuji, Ann, Makoto, Yusuke, Futaba, Haru, or any of his other friends to pull him out of his thoughts. Just him and the sea.

 

The sea where, after much deliberation, Akira erected Goro’s grave.

 

There wasn’t a body of course, just a missing boy and an uncaring public. After all, who would remember the agent of a ruin that never happened in the first place? On the coldest nights, Akira thinks about how erasing the public’s memory of a boy who wanted nothing but to be acknowledged was the cruelest thing the god of control could have done.

 

“ _ I’ve always wished I could live by the ocean _ ” a throwaway comment made to Akira while Goro was attempting to dig information about Akira’s past from under his mask. At the time, Akira wasn’t sure if Goro had even meant to say it. And now he’ll never get to ask.

 

The grave is simple, a slab of carved stone hidden away in a shallow nook carved out by the sea. Sand accumulates quickly, so Akira comes out to clean it off often. He’s not family, but who else is there?

 

“Hey Goro, it’s me again,” he sets his cleaning tools down and goes about dusting off the sand. He got into the habit of talking to Goro early on, there’s not much else to do besides listening to the overbearing sound of the waves.

 

“It’s been a while…” 

 

“I’ve been trying to learn how to make pancakes the way you like them, but they kept turning out burnt, sorry” Akira switches to the sponge and water-bucket, intending to scrub off some of the sea grime that becomes encrusted after high tide.

 

He stays silent as he scrubs, Goro’s face omnipresent in his mind. Would Goro appreciate that he comes out here to clean his grave? He always had a thing about appearances, but maybe he would have finally wanted to take a break from them?

 

Maybe Akira would know if he hadn’t been such an  _ idiot. _

 

The signs were all there for him to read. Goro dropped so  _ many _ clues, left them in plain sight for Akira to see. Like he was desperate for someone to figure him out and to help him out of the corner he’d backed himself into.

 

Hell, even if Akira had just  _ reacted _ , pulled Goro away from the bulkhead doors, Goro would have been alive.

 

He’s run through countless scenarios in his head, circling around and around on what he could have done to be faster, better. And his thoughts always loop back to one thing.

 

“I wish we’d met before all of this” an echo, “ _ I wish I could have met you years ago” _

 

“I wish we could have grown up together” wide red eyes meeting his on a hot summer day in the park just a few blocks away from school. They could have been friends, then.

 

“I wish I could have seen what you were like after you aced an exam you studied all night for” he can imagine it, from the few true smiles he saw from Goro. A wide grin of accomplishment, just a little bit cocky.

 

His voice quiets before he speaks again, “I wish your mom had held on to be with you”

 

“I wish you never felt you had to take revenge for her” 

  
“But most of all,” he’s crying now, getting tears on places he only just washed off, “I wish I could have saved  _ you _ ”


End file.
